Terminal Descent
by blingy16
Summary: Eric Matthews is dying, but he may be able to escape. T for heavy language.


You wake up from a drugged sleep on a floor that smells like someone died on it, and you know that someone probably has.

That's all you know when you wake up into one of Jigsaw's sick games. All you know is your gun is a few inches away from you, and that your son is not here where you've been convinced he should be. It's very confusing, but basically, you've been bullshitted.

Then what in the hell was that in the bathtub? I don't know, I don't remember.

All I remember is that I watched some woman go out the door, familiar looking. I can't quite remember her name, but I know she played before, with some head thing. Bite your head off or something, maybe it was her neck. I know, I know, I should have paid attention at my briefing when I came over here from Lucida, but I didn't.

All this hypocritical bullshit about right and wrong. It's all opinionated, but then again what isn't these days. Just another fucked up addition to our fucked up world.

Fucking darkness, collapsing in.

It's been three hours now. The fucking drug that was keeping me good and safe is wearing off now. And it hurts more than anything has ever hurt before. I mean, fuck this.

There's something eating away at me from the inside, burning away like an acid. And the air has a scent, not the kind you get from dead bodies. I mean, this is chemical pure and simple. Some kind of poison, I guess. And I've got maybe ten minutes until it kills me. I'm already coughing up blood onto the floor.

This is my premature burial.

Damn it, Tom told me this would happen eventually, didn't he? I'd fuck up a ton, and then I got fucked for doing that in the first place. It's my destiny. Little brother Tom, always a step ahead of me.

And a step behind.

No, this is my chance. That old man, John something-or-other, he was behind it all the entire time. And everyone has a fair chance to escape, right? I mean, this opinionated bullshit has to end somehow, right?

Wrong.

There's no damn way to escape. This woman who left me in here, she's fucking with me. Just sitting out there in front of the door, I guess, waiting to see if I can escape from a second chance.

I've tried tearing the chain off with my bare hands. I've broken my foot, but not even that is going to get me out. No way. It's just too tight. Where the hell they get these things, I oughta pay a visit and ask 'em what their smallest sizes are. There's a broken jigsaw a few feet away, and it won't help, the chains are huge.

Well, this fucking sucks.

Micheal, these poor bastards I can see in the dim twilight now that my eyes have adjusted, and now me. There's that dead body smell that I remember about the floor. And something else that's been beating around at the back of my mind.

Gun, inches away from my right hand, I lunge out into the darkness that is growing brighter by the second. Mind deteriorating, I guess. My hand is shy about six inches, I think. Then, maybe I can--

Fuck this shit.

I take my holster off and throw it out in front of myself, accidently hitting the gun a bit further away. I growl, and try again. Twelve inches? Sixteen? Who gives a fuck, I know I don't.

I get the gun, when all of the sudden everything gets darker. I think this is the final stage of the deterioration, where I lose my mind, start to lose knowledge, drugged to death I guess you could say. And of course, there's the problem that this stuff might have AIDS in it, this air. Ah, fuck.

The gun is in my hand, and I shoot the lock, but the bullet just ricochets off. Or maybe it digs in, I can't tell. It's getting darker second by second, but it's fucking slow.

The thingy is spinning... where am I...

We've just entered terminal descent. Please remain seated at all times while Eric Matthews evacuates his body.

I shoot the rope-- chain-- and it pops free, the shrapnel digging into my leg. I scream, but that's all. There's another chain, but I just hit it with the gun as hard as I can, letting my anger out. It snaps in half.

I stand up and wobble, make it to the huge, heavy oak door, and I try to push it open, even a tiny bit, to get fresh air--

It's locked. I'm fucked.

Or am I getting weaker? Is this me at the last three feet of my life, burning out and smothered in the darkness?

Do I just not have the pressure to open it with my entire body?

Point of no return.

Push harder, push harder, goddammit, push the fucking door open--

Crash in five.

Scream, let the blood flood your lungs. If you make it out, you have a direct path out. You can crawl outside if you have to. The worst you can do is crawl the wrong way.

Crash: four.

Pound: repeat. Continue to do this, and scream at the top of your lungs.

Crash: Three.

Remember where the hell that damn gun is. Where the fuck did I leave it-- wait a damn second, isn't it--

Crash: Two.

Raise hand and pull the trigger on the automatic. Who knows, maybe you'll shoot the fucking lock in the darkness. If you're lucky. Then push hard, until--

Crash: One.

The door crashes open, but I fall to the floor. And I look up to see the woman, Amanda-- why do I remember that now?-- with a syringe of antidote plunged into her arm, and she merely taps it with a finger, emptying its contents.

Antidote? There's a fucking antidote? What the bloody hell?

I start to moan and spit blood onto the floor. I've died, my body just hasn't figured that out yet.

Descent will end in t-minus one minute and counting.

Through my mind, what's left of it, I make out a speech.

"Congratulations," she says to me, standing up from the chair she was sitting in. "You've become immortal, but your game has been over for a long time now."

Yeah, yeah, wait, what? Game's been over? As in that game John wanted me to go along with?

"You have a choice: I take you outside with an antidote in your arm, or I let you stay here," she says as she begins to walk away.

Fuck, I remember the gun, and I lift it up, aiming at her. I pull the trigger, and one bullet leaps out at her. She simply ducks down low, and it ricochets off the wall.

"Enjoy eternity," she says quietly.

She turns the corner, and I know she's gone not coming back.

Eternity.

I'm not paralyzed, I just can't walk. I lift the gun to my head, and I pull the trigger, praying for one last little soldier bullet to take me away.

Nothing. I've been running on empty. And then the final descent comes, the final fleeting moment of my life.

Eternity.

Evenshual.

Realitea.

Eko.

Descent achieved.


End file.
